March 13, 2019

observations 3/13

Defendant Longhitano has filed a written letter to the judge calling out Waterbury's attorneys for questionable behavior and asking for the requested adjournment to be denied:

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Here's an interesting update.

Jared Longhitano's motion to dismiss the Waterbury lawsuit was scheduled to be heard in court this morning at 9:30 AM. Waterbury's law firm suddenly filed a request for a delay until April 3rd with the explanation that the law firm is down to one attorney, who is "new to our firm and multiple motions came in on this case at the same time. We have not contacted Jared Longhitano because we were told he was out of the country and we do not have his contact information."

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Did Jordan Merson saw a malpractice lawsuit on the horizon and decided to keep himself busy with other cases to reduce further damages? This is a potentially big case that could get him on all major TV networks and put his names in a news cycle. Lawyers for a plaintiff do need to contact the defendants, no matter what they hear about their whereabouts. Unless they wanted the letter to be hand delivered and didn’t want to use a certified mail. Another explanation could be that they frantically negotiating a settlement with Longhitano begging him to withdraw his response and promising to drop the case against him.

Well, as of this moment, the court has not signed off on his request. Nor is there any signature of agreement by Longhitano. Maybe Longhitano stuck his heels in and stayed for the court appearance. We'll just have to wait for the next document to show up.

By the way, the "handling attorney" is still listed on the court records as Merson, not somebody "new".

Hi Haglund! Did you see the Exhibit C that he filed this morning to add to his motion to dismiss? It's pretty intense. I'm curious as to your opinion of it. He has some very interesting points and I'm curious how they'd hold up in court. I'm sensing he is getting ready to go on the offense if this gets dismissed based upon the tone of the exhibit and letter to the judge, but who knows? He's clearly making the case that there's been very questionable behavior from the start.

Longhitano seems like a total slimeball and I would probably sprint in the opposite direction if I ever met him in person knowing what I now know, but (from a complete layperson's perspective) it seems like he has a strong argument. Thanks for posting updates on this case.

NYer, I did see Exhibit C but was confused because it was uploaded at the same time as the plaintiff's adjournment request. Thanks for connecting it to JL's motion.

I am certainly no fan of JL -- at all. But he was frivolously dragged into a lawsuit for no reason other than to make it more media worthy. He lost his job and his income as a result. Who would blame him for going on the offensive?

The plaintiff may well find herself having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, in defense attorney fees and costs by the time this is all finished. Perhaps her attorney could negotiate a reduction in exchange for her shutting up, perhaps not. She's wasting a lot of people's money when she only has possible reason to go after Finlay.

Haglund, wouldn't it be hard for her to find a defense attorney if JL gets dismissed and then sues her? I imagine it would be a hard sell because if it gets dismissed then the court is saying his involvement is irrelevant to the case. Imagine her talking to an attorney and saying she needs a defense lawyer because she's getting sued. The defense lawyer asks her what happened and she says, "Well I tried to sue a guy and the case got dismissed so now he's suing me for loss of job/frivolous lawsuit/mental anguish, etc and whatever else JL comes up with. How do you defend against that?

It looks like the next big date to look forward to is 4/22 when attorneys for NYCB, Finlay, and Amar all want to meet up with the plaintiff's attorney in Judge D'Auguste's courtroom to argue their dismissals. That should be a party...

I'd love to hear from a disinterested attorney on all of this. In my experience working in various trial and motion courts (I am not an attorney), first adjournments are routinely granted regardless of reason. We can speculate that JL shouldn't have been sued, but that will be a matter of law - the suit can be dismissed by a judge for lack of legal foundation and, if not, then a matter of facts which will be decided by a judge or jury. If the suit is decided to have been brought frivously, then, potentially, attorneys' fees could be awarded to the defendant. But the flimsy (?) excuse of not being able to contact JL really can't generate more than a reprimand from the court and a notation that the adjourned date is peremptory against the plaintiff (meaning no more adjournments for them).